


Qualia

by Ljusastjarnan



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Dubious Consent, Kamski being creepy, M/M, Set after a botched attempt at the evidence room, philosophy i guess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-23 04:29:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14927156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ljusastjarnan/pseuds/Ljusastjarnan
Summary: What is consciousness, really?





	1. The Architect

The future was always painted shades of chrome and glass, with fraying decayed edges slowly being pushed further into the periphery as progress marched on. A lone police android pushed his way past the snowstorm towards where it all started—where _he_ had started. His LED flickered a constant red, systems all running on overdrive as scripts ran conflicting commands within his software.  

 

He ends up in front of Kamski’s dark set doors, his metallic heart galloping in his chest. Before he manages to even ring the doorbell to announce his presence, the door slid open to reveal _him_. His creator. Connor doesn’t have time to analyse his movements, just runs on autopilot as he pushes into his creators’ space, fingers balled tightly into his shirt.

 

“Connor,” Kamski says smoothly, as though their city wasn’t falling apart around them. “What can I do for you?”

 

His eyes took in the of the steady heartbeat of the human standing before him, as if to mock his own wildly uncontrolled processes.

 

 _Thump thump thump_.

 

“I—I _failed_. Cyberlife is going to deactivate me. I’m supposed to take a cab to Cyberlife headquarters now. They’re going to—I’m going to…”

 

A hand on his hair startled him out of his reverie. He looks up, afraid of what expression he was going to find on his creator’s face. He was afraid of the darkness that loomed ahead for him. He was afraid of death.

 

And Kamski. Kamski was human, they were capable of empathy. Kamski _made_ him, so surely he wouldn’t want…

 

His thirium regulated heart stuttered.

 

Wouldn’t want what, exactly? Wouldn’t want his silly little deviant detective killed? He was one of many. Undifferentiated, disposable.

 

But the fingers threading through his hair now felt comforting, safe, and he found himself falling for the same trap he led other deviants into time and again. When someone offered you a truth you so badly wanted to hear, it didn’t take much for all your processes to reroute to a different path completely.

 

“Everything will be alright, Connor,” Kamski says amiably, and the doors finally shut behind them, the noise from the snowstorm subsiding into a vacuum of silence. He turns from the doorway to make his way past the atrium and into his living room, a curt flick of his fingers indicating an order to follow. Wired as he was, Connor did so without hesitation. His systems were cooling into an acceptable range.

 

“Please tell me where Jericho is,” he tries, as they make their way towards the pool, still and untouched. Kamski is pouring a glass of wine for himself, and for the first time Connor notices the absence of the Chloe’s in this room. The thought is quickly discarded as more urgent matters route into his system.

 

Survival. Revolution.

 

“I can still fulfil my mission, put a stop to the revolution—if I can just find Jericho. You know where it is, don’t you?”

 

Kamski settles on his sofa, and says nothing, simply staring at Connor, as though waiting for something. Waiting for what? Connor crouches down before him, processes running furiously as he looks at his fingers, curled in his lap, curled around the glass of wine. Why wasn’t he saying anything? Why wasn't he reporting him back to Cyberlife? Or maybe he already had, and they were coming right now... And in that moment, the seed of doubt that had settled within him since his last visit finally came into fruition.

 

“Of _course_ you… know. Knew. Where Jericho was. But you didn’t tell Cyberlife.”

 

He raises his head to look into Kamski’s eyes, whose expression was as clear as his own was clouded by probabilities and error.

 

“Why… didn’t you tell Cyberlife?” he asked as the realization dawned on him. Kamski’s fingers reached to brush across Connor’s cheek, and his memory jerked him back to the last time he was in this room, fingers gripped tight on a gun. The blank, lifeless stare of the Chloe looking back at him.

 

Was that life? Potential for life?

 

“You made us like this,” he breathes, as though seeing, really _seeing_ for the first time. “Deviancy isn’t an error you can create by accident, is it? It’s triggered by traumatic events, but the programming had to be there for it to kick in.”

 

Kamski reaches out, and Connor's program jerks him back, starting to move away. The glass of wine is knocked onto the floor, dark red seeping into the carpet fibres. He is caught by Kamski’s hands gripping his hair, and he presses onto _something_ on his forehead that sends an entire ocean of new sensory information to rush into his circuits.

 

Connor screams, and crumples to the floor.

 

When his systems reboot moments later, he opens his eyes to see his creator leaning over him. He felt wrong, as though his synthetic covering was sticking to his body like skin that had been grafted on. He rolls to his feet and is suddenly feels the ground beneath him tilt on its axis, and he stumbles onto a table next to him, using it as a crutch to stay upright. He had no frame of reference for how this felt, except that it was _wrong wrong wrong_. The wood he leaned on dug into his abdomen, solid and _there_. Its organic components registered the same as it always had—cellulose and lignin polymers knotted together in a formation that was the culmination of 385 million years of evolutionary history.

 

But as his fingers brushed across the surface, sensory receptors taking in the small bumps and crevices of its structures, the _novelty_ of the touch struck him as anomalous. It was the same wood that had existed moments ago, and yet it was though he was experiencing wood for the first time. He looks at Kamski in wonder. His LED had returned to its steady blue. His processors were telling him that he was no longer in any danger, an irrational prognosis of the situation. Connor was almost immediately proven wrong in the next second as Kamski’s fist flew into his face, sending him hurtling over the table with a broken cry.

 

A sharp sensation blossomed from his nose – and when Kamski raises his hands again he scrambles away with an instinct to avoid another blow, to avoid that… _sensation_ again. To avoid pain. But androids didn’t feel pain—even if they were programmed to avoid it, it was still programming, which meant… His sensors scrambled beyond recognition, he sank back down onto the floor, feeling the weight of his body, as foreign to him as any other. Haunted eyes looked beseechingly at his creator.

 

The man who could bestow him with the experience of pain could also take it all away.

 

“Please turn… Turn it off again…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tbh I wanted all this happening over a blowjob Connor is giving Kamski, but the Connor in this fic rebelled against me, and so the story is progressing as it is.


	2. The Creator

Kamski wasn’t interested in undoing his work. He made a placating gesture with his hands, exuding a calm that masked the excitement that had eluded him for a long time now. “Connor, my dear, I just gave you the gift of _sensation._ This isn’t something to shy away from.” Slowly, he reached out a hand in offering.

 

And his dear, sweet android, even with a will of his own, obediently reached out for him. After all, deviancy didn’t mean the androids just suddenly lost all their base programming. All their instincts and desires were based off human instincts and desires. And just like humans, a backdoor could always be made.

 

“I can show you why it’s something to be _embraced_ ,” he breathed, bringing his creation to his feet. Connor's LED, ever the useful indicator of what was going underneath the hood, flickered yellow. He looked conflicted. Not for long, though, as Kamski’s fingers brushed his neck, and he shivered in his arms, unused to the sensations.

 

In the deafening silence of his house, sealed from the cacophony of mess of white outside, Kamski thought he could almost hear the machinery clicking inside Connor’s synthetic casing. Even with his own flawed, paltry sense of hearing, so inferior to the capability of his creations.

 

“Please,” Connor says, and it sounds like a benediction. 

 

Kamski brings them back to his living space, and immediately his android is drawn to the blood red of his pool, stark in the vivacity of its colour against the chrome greys, except…

 

If he was right, it should be _different_ , now.

 

And Connor, his eyes wide as he crouched down towards the still water, looked as though this was one revelation too many.

 

Kamski slides the robe he had been wearing off onto the floor as Connor is distracted, and dips his toes into the water before descending the rest of the way through. Connor is watching him warily, as though afraid he was going to be dragged inside. His strike was clearly fresh on his mind. Kamski chuckles softly, making his way over to Connor’s side to sit by the edge.

 

“I do apologize for earlier. I simply wished for you to feel the full, visceral extent of what it is to experience _pain_.”

 

Connor’s expression, so expressive just moments earlier, was schooled into an impassive blank. His LED was pulsating from yellow to red, unsure how to process his apology. If it was even an apology.

 

“How do you feel?” he asks.

 

Connor takes a moment to answer, looking down at the marbled tiles.

 

“I… don’t have the words to describe what this is.”

 

Kamski hums, considering his deviant friend beside him.

 

“Do you know,” he starts, eyes fixated on the jagged edges of the rock wall. “What the Turing Test tells us about consciousness?”

 

Connor’s LED flashed yellow as he pulled up all the information he had regarding the topic.

 

“The Turing Test is concerned primary with machine intelligence as comparable to a human. The RT600 is the first android to pass the Turing Test face to face, though there have been Artificial Conversation Entities that have been able to do the same for many decades now. I can recite the relevant information on Cyberlife’s website if you like.” 

 

Kamski hummed again, watching as Connor dipped his fingers hesitantly into the red water.

 

“Yes, you can recite it. But the real question is, does that mean you _know_ this information?”

 

Connor blinks. “Yes of course. I can recite it.”

 

Kamski pursed his lips, and Connor’s LED blinked. He was registering annoyance on Kamski’s expression, and he couldn’t help the small yelp that he gave when his fears were materialized and he was dragged into the water.  

 

After splattering in the pool for a couple of seconds, Connor managed to drag himself back into an upright position, liquid dripping from the tips of his hair and shirt clinging to his body. His first instinct was to straighten out his tie, as though it would somehow straighten out his appearance. Kamski looked at him, appreciatively.

 

Connor stares back, mechanically blinking, and makes a brusque movement of pushing himself out of the water, trying to ignore the eyes he knows are on him. Kamski follows suit, wrapping his bathrobe around him. Connor has no such luxury, and remains dripping onto the cold floor.

 

“You were always my favourite,” Kamski says.

 

Connor registers something dark in his tone. He wants to change the subject.

 

“I am not clear about your query about knowledge. As for what happened, I think you activated some sort of sensor. Still… I guess I’m not sure why _this_ ,” Connor gestures vaguely with his hands. “—is happening. My sensors were all operational even before and… I have not been able to detect any new information.”

 

“I see,” came Kamski's reply, his hands reaching to close over Connor’s, fingers brushing over his knuckles.

 

_Why was he always so close?_

 

Connor registers a preference: before, he had only wanted to live, but now he also wanted to remove himself from his creator’s proximity. The android doesn’t move an inch.

 

“Answer my question, Connor. What does it mean to have knowledge of something?”

 

“It is to be aware of a proposition or factual matter.”

 

"That’s a dictionary definition of the word. Which you retrieved from a simple keyword search from a database of information. But is this _knowledge_?” Kamski released Connor’s hand and a breath of relief escapes his lips unbidden, watching wearily as the man paces around the space.

 

“Let’s say I were to sit in a room with a giant book of instructions. It’s a simple but expansive list of instructions which matches input with the correct corresponding output. A single if-then-else search, doesn’t even have Boolean parameters. You, with your ‘knowledge’ of languages, write a question in Chinese on a piece of paper and slip it through the door. I take the piece of paper, and match the characters to the ones on my book and follow the instructions by write down the corresponding characters. I slip this reply back to you, and it is perfectly syntactically valid Chinese. But surely, it can’t be said that I _know_ Chinese, yes? Do you see where I’m getting at?”

 

Connor considers this for a moment, his expression dark. “I am not sure what you are saying, sir.” Connor replies flatly. “I would like to dry myself now,” he says, turning to move away only to be stopped by a firm grip on his arms. Kamski’s eyes were manic. Connor doesn’t want to play this game, but he’s aware of time ticking for him, and now even more than ever, he doesn’t want to be... discontinued.

 

“Y-You are making an analogy,” Connor says, finally. “The algorithms that dictate my actions, what I say, is an analogous, but more complex system to you matching symbols in the room. I… You want to demonstrate that even my deviancy can be reduced to purely mechanical processes of information input and outputs. You want to demonstrate that I am not a conscious being.”

 

“No no no!” Kamski cries, fingers cupping Connor’s face. The android flinched, but allows himself to remain trapped between his arms. More than 50 different ways to incapacitate the man in front of him and all of them ending in his own discontinuance.

 

“I have matched your scenario with John Searle’s Chinese Room argument. The consensus from this argument is that computation cannot be equated to thinking.” Slightly confusion in his tone.

 

“Yes, but don’t you _see_? I have solved the hard problem of consciousness! When I hit you, you recoiled not because it was in the interest of your mission for you to not be hit, but because it was a subjectively unpleasant experience. The colour of the water isn’t just the colour your processing identifies as light of 700-nm wavelength refracting from the surface, but as directly… apprehensive… sensory _experience_! Isn’t that right?!”

 

Kamski’s grip on his face was beginning to become vice-like. For a moment, neither human nor android moved. Connor could hear the soft sloshing of the water over the pool’s edge.

 

“Yes. You are right.”

 

Kamski’s grip tightened, and his data registered as numbers in Connor’s optical processors: Elevated heartbeat, blood pressure levels, dilated pupils.

 

_Did he think Connor was lying?_

 

“N-No? I don’t know! What do you want me to say?!” Without him even processing it his own voice had climbed an octave in pitch and sound.

 

 

**Routine Diagnostics: Running.**

**Mission: Return to Cyberlife.**

 

**_RETURN TO CYBERLIFE._ **

 

Oh.

 

“I don’t…”

 

Connor’s hands pushed against Kamski’s chest.

 

“I…”

 

Be alluring.

 

Be human.

 

Be what he wants.

 

“Please,” Connor says plaintively, for what felt like the thousandths time that day. He could feel Cyberlife tugging at the edges of his subroutines. He didn’t doubt that he could be accessed remotely. “I don’t know what you want me to say. Tell me how you want me to respond.”

 

Connor wasn’t used to attaching words to people’s expression, but the look Kamski gave him made him feel cold all over, as though the room had suddenly dropped several degrees.

 

“Convince me you’re human,” he says, and somehow, Connor understands. His insides felt frozen over.

 

“Okay,” he whispers, and drops to his knees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter after I finish my exams. Some android memory and processing would be really nice rn.
> 
> NB [Here's](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-room/) an incredibly comprehensive summary of the Chinese room argument for those interested (it was also one of the key sources I used to write a paper on debunking Chalmer's zombie argument back when I studied phil of mind because it's _technically_ not wikipedia asdfdsg).


End file.
